Northern East Pacific Rise: Magnetic anomaly and bathymetric framework

Abstract

The oceanic crust in the eastern Pacific between 7°N and 30°N and east of 127°W contains a fairly complete history of the spreading centers associated with the East Pacific Rise since 25 m.y. B.P. (late Oligocene). In this paper, we have summarized the seafloor spreading magnetic-anomaly data and the bathymetric data that reflect the record of this tectonic history. The well-defined magnetic lineations north of the Clarion fracture zone, in the mouth of the Gulf of California, and on the east flank of the East Pacific Rise (EPR) are carefully examined and used to provide a guide for interpreting the spreading pattern between the Clarion and Clipperton fracture zones, southward of the Rivera fracture zone over the Mathematician Ridge, and over the entire EPR east of the Mathematician Ridge between the Rivera and Siqueiros fracture zones. The bathymetric data provide a trace of the fracture zone pattern in each of the above mentioned areas. The fracture zone bathymetry and the seafloor spreading magnetic lineations on the EPR south of the Rivera fracture zone have a distinctive fanning pattern caused by close poles of rotation and plate boundary reorganizations. All these data provide a good record of the plate reorganizations in the middle Miocene at magnetic anomaly 5 A time (12.5 to 11 m.y. B.P.), in the late Miocene at magnetic anomaly 3′−4 time (6.5 m.y. B.P.), and in the Pliocene at magnetic anomaly 2′−3 time (3.5 m.y. B.P.). Several abandoned spreading centers, including the Mathematician Ridge, were left behind as a result of these reorganizations. The Mathematician Ridge is shown to be a set of ridges and trough whose origin is related to the tectonic activity associated with each of the above mentioned reorganizations since anomaly 5A.